Aphrodite
by o-seastarved
Summary: He didn’t know it yet, but just as he was confident, elusive, she was otherworldly. She was Aphrodite. She was Serena van der Woodsen. But he was Carter Baizen and nothing would stop him. “Hey beautiful,” he said. A Santorini fic


_A/N: I began writing this over the summer, before we got an real Carter/Serena scenes and before we knew about Santorini. So forgive me if it's outdated! It's unfinished, but I'm proud of it and figured I'd publish it and maybe that will give incentive to wrap it up soon. The Greek Gods left are: _Hestia Artemis, Hades, Ares, Hermes.

* * *

**Aphrodite  
[love, beauty, lust]**

The cab had been stuffy and smelled like leather along the winding, narrow roads of the cliffs and she wilted a little along the way. The sky looked like the purest blue there ever was and the crisp white of the archaic buildings promised that the air would be filled with summer and salt, but she didn't feel it. She'd sighed because she couldn't take in the view if she couldn't feel it, so she'd rested her forehead against the clouded glass window and waited.

The cab pulled itself up onto the top of the cliff on which her five star hotel sat, and when it inched up to the steps, her legs felt heavy and her eyes dry. Ever the gentleman, the driver with a weathered face from sand and sun opened her door and retrieved her bags, and as she stepped out she could feel it.

She could feel the Santorini air, and it was beautiful – like salt and summer. Her hair moved slightly with the east-bound wind and she smiled. It filled her lungs and she revived, like she belonged with the deities of the country, like she was one of them.

He saw it from across the lobby. The simplest of white, gauzy dresses to her ankles and the long, tumbling hair like amber and sunshine. She looked positively ethereal.

He slid from his stool at the bar and excused himself from his company. His shoes clicked deliciously against the marble of the lobby, but of course she wouldn't notice that. He didn't know it yet, but just as he was confident, elusive, she was otherworldly. She was Aphrodite. She was Serena van der Woodsen.

But he was Carter Baizen and nothing would stop him.

"Hey beautiful," he said.

**Apollo  
[health, music, truth, light]**

Glasses clinked politely. "To good health," he toasted and took a healthy sip of his wine.

"To good health," she repeated and mimicked him with a smile. Lightly playing music strummed throughout the outside partition of the restaurant and the sea lapped rhythmically beneath them. "I still can't believe I ran into you here of all the people in the world."

"And all the places," he added. "There's nothing like the island remnants of an apocalyptic volcanic eruption to bring two people together, right?"

"What, seriously?" Serena asked, wide eyed, her glass coming down from around her nose to sit on the white tablecloth.

"Well apocalyptic is an overstatement. I tend to be hyperbolic at times, but it was biblical if nothing else," Carter explained with a perfect mixture of bred arrogance and a twinge of knowing playfulness.

"Oh," Serena said with a perfectly rounded mouth and a slight roll to her eyes as she sipped again.

Carter laughed. "Like the wine?"

"I do." She nodded and for a second a wisp of something reached him and he loved that she still drank her wine like a kid, she didn't let it sit and she was all too eager to lap it up, with the wide rim of the glass sitting across the bridge of her nose.

"I can take you to a vineyard. A private winery, not one of these tourist factories."

"Only if we can step on the grapes with our bare feet and get all messy," she said with playfulness and excitement and there just had to have been a twinkle in her eye.

"I'll see what I can arrange," he responded, ever collected. He sat back in his seat and marveled in the dusk and the timber of the violins stringing rustically.

"And olives! I want to eat Kalamata olives at a grove." He could just imagine her biting into one, nibbling around the pit because she wouldn't just pop the whole thing in her mouth. And then the juices would run down her fingers and she'd laugh because she was always amused, he knew that much about her.

"You haven't been to Santorini before I take it," he said without a hint of what was going on inside. He'd learned to keep his poker face on permanently while running whatever wild thoughts he pleased behind it.

"First time," she conceded.

"So why are you here?"

"What?" She became suddenly sober, in blood alcohol level and in mood.

"Why are you in Santorini?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, Serena, you showed up alone, with no friends, no family, no familiar getaway destination. It's not exactly a place you jet off to for some downtime, it's pretty out of the way."

"I like out of the way."

"You running from something?"

"Carter, it's none of your business."

"Come on, you can tell me. I'm off the grid remember?"

"So am I."

"Exactly." He let their shared commonality sink in for a minute just long enough for it to settle into the atmosphere. He waited and then, "What are you running from?" Soft, low.

"Carter…" she started with some tiredness.

"S…"

"I'm not running from anything. I'm looking for something."

**Athena  
[wisdom, strategy, reason]**

She needed him. She was very very lucky because she needed his help. She didn't tell him why, she didn't explain herself, but he could see in her slightly troubled brow and her stormy eyes that she was serious about this. She wanted this, needed this perhaps. So he said he would help her find her father on the island. It was small after all. But Carter Baizen didn't do good deeds, he didn't offer up his help or his services or his friendship. But he'd always liked the girl. From school to the Hamptons to the clubs she'd show up at when she was fourteen and fifteen years old. And he'd never seen her this subdued, this serious and driven. Well, he'd seen her driven to swipe the last bottle of tequila from behind the bar, but that was a different matter.

So he'd made a call to his P.I., he'd sent her on her way to inns and hotels and rented houses he knew of to knock on the doors. He'd even staked out the marina with her one afternoon in seersucker and aviators, champagne in hand at three pm. She loosened up a bit then, shaking out her hair and playing spy.

They had structure. And purpose and drive. Or so they thought. Sure, he didn't do much in terms of activity, he wouldn't walk all of the steps of Santorini even for Serena van der Woodsen, and he never took her to that vineyard. He wasn't a man who followed women. But he helped in little ways, and she would tell him before she left for the day where she would go and they'd cross off the empty inns at the bar when she returned. They passed each other in the lobby and the bar and the pool and coexisted in a strange, yet comfortable way.

After three days he informed her that spottings of Keith were made in Morocco, Tokyo, and Argentina. So she packed her bags.

She was frenzied and frazzled and disorganized when he knocked on her door and it annoyed him.

"Have you seen my Balenciaga bag I wore when I went down to Vlichada?" She was throwing clothes around in circles. He groaned and leaned against the wall in bemusement.

"I still think it's pointless to go to three entirely opposite places on the planet to look for him. If Santorini couldn't turn up results, good luck scouring the globe."

"I have to," Serena bit out. "And I don't see you or your shitty P.I. helping at all to narrow it down."

"You'd be nowhere without me, sweetheart. You should be more grateful," Carter responded with a mocking smirk.

Suddenly he saw her through creamy, gauzy material as one of her shirts hit him in the face and tumbled down into his hands.

"If you don't have any better ideas genius, then get out."

He liked this temperament on her.

"Stay."

"What?"

"I said stay."

"I know what you said."

"Then why did you say what?"

"I meant why."

"Look, you're being too hasty. You should wait here until you hear something more definite. And, possibly have a little fun," he explained. She crossed her arms. "This isn't you. Who are you van der Woodsen? Reformed? I'd like to say I know you, and this is not you."

"You don't think I can have purpose, Carter?" She asked softly but bitterly.

"Come on, it's perfectly reasonable that you let loose in Santorini for a little while before you head off on your daddy quest again."

"I don't know." she said with hesitation and bit her bottom lip.

"Yes you do," he smirked and strode over to the mini bar. He lined up each tiny bottle of each different drink on the dresser meticulously before turning around. "What do you say we get started?"

Serena stood unmoving for a beat, before a slow hint of a smile crept into the corners of her mouth.

"You are a very wise man, Carter Baizen."

**Poseidon  
[sea, flood, earth shaker, storm bringer]**

"Since when did you have a boat?" She said a little sloppily as she tried not to catch her heels in the wooden planks of the dock.

"It's a sailboat," he corrected and held out his hand so she could breach the space between land and sea. "And it's a friend's."

"I can't believe I mixed that much alcohol!" She cooed as she jumped onto the boat, wobbling as the boat rocked at the new presence.

"With your record, you can handle it," he laughed and followed suit. "Now…" he said decisively and flipped on his aviators with a saucy grin, "…let's steer this thing."

"Ok, what should I do?" she asked, eyeing the sails and the rope and smiling sheepishly.

"Nothing, Let me handle it, beautiful." Carter winked and climbed up to the bow.

"Charming," Serena said sarcastically and looked behind her to find a handsome cream leather seat waiting for her. The sun was in her face as was the breeze and she could smell the salt in the air and the fish in the sea. She heard the ropes moving and the flap of the sails as the boat took off, and she looked behind her at the trail they left in wake.

She loved the sea. Whenever she was near it she felt like she belonged in it, with it. It soothed her and put her at peace. Peace from Blair and Nate, from her mother and boarding school, and from her mysterious father. She was happy to be gone and away for an undisclosed period of time, alone and with her thoughts.

"Hey."

Except she wasn't alone.

"Look what I found."

She turned to look and the sun was behind him, silhouetting his frame and he looked taller, different somehow. He'd always been around, ran in the same circles as she had and yet she could never quite put a finger on him. Not that she was surprised that his big find was a full bottle of tequila hidden in storage under one of the seats at the bow. Warm still from the two mini bar bottles of tequila already, one of vodka, one of scotch, and one even of vermouth, she was just at the point where the promise of more alcohol warming her blood was the most pleasant thing she could imagine.

"Woo!" She cheered.

"No salt or lime. Can you take it?"

"Of course! Hit me!" She clapped her enthusiasm and he was sure she knew how adorable she could be even while in the process of becoming shit-faced.

"You know, you and me are a lot alike, Serena. Well, aside from your indelible bubbly personality." He handed her the bottle. "Ladies first."

She raised the bottle in salute to him and took a swig. "And why is that, Carter Baizen? Tell me how we are alike in any way."

"Well…" He settled next to her and secured the bottle for his own once more. "…We both have a need to wander. To rove about the planet at will. Am I right?"

Serena looked him and his sideways smile that always seemed a little bit smarmy. She could see no relatable qualities in their personalities, but he had a point.

"Yeah, I guess you are," she answered and tried to copy his slanted smile just for fun and giggled just a little bit when she realized what she was doing. Her head was fuzzy and her brain caught up with her only after she did things.

"You can't be tied down, and you shouldn't have to be. You should be able to do what you want, when you want, and most importantly, where you want. You can't live according to what is expected of you or stop yourself from leaving everything in your life behind in search of something more, something in the world worthy of you besides skyscrapers and fifth avenue brunch benefits."

Her head was fuzzy. Her head was fuzzy and her nerves in her brain were dancing and before her inner monologue had a chance to laugh at her drunken outer self, she'd practically leapt forward into his lap and kissed him.

He propelled backwards against the back of the seat at the force as her lips covered his. Opening his mouth for a much-needed reflexive breath, he instead breathed in Serena, like she was the sea and it was flowing salty into him, fresh and clear. His tongue just darted out to graze her lips and curl around her teeth to find her before she pulled away.

Inner Serena was just coming to and caused her to giggle at herself again. "Let's go swimming."

Later they took ecstasy and dove off the boat and into the lagoon. She could have sworn she saw sea horses materialize out of the sea foam but he wouldn't believe her because he'd only almost forgotten the way she tasted like Santorini.

**Dionysus****  
****[wine, parties, festivals, drunkenness]****  
**

Take me to a club, she said, and show me this nightlife Santorini boasts. First, he insisted, they must wine and dine. Ok, a sufficient amount of wine sounds fine. And then, he suggests, a couple of lines of coke. They were buzzed by the time they felt the techno rhythm of the club's music vibrating from the cobblestones and up through their feet.

"Watch yourself," Carter whispered in her ear after her heel caught the crease of a cobblestone the wrong way and she tipped backwards. Serena laughed at the rush it gave her even while she welcomed the firm stability of his arm around her waist. They traipsed up the hill assuredly, and Serena's arm gradually snaked around his waistcoat as well. Carter thought what a pair they were.

"You better let go when we get there. I can't have you ruining my prospects with the hot, foreign, Greek men," Serena told him, glancing over at him sideways. As they got closer and as the beat resonated in her chest she gave an enthusiastic shimmy.

Carter stopped walking and let go of her, waiting behind until she registered after several steps that he was no longer beside her. "Hey!" She protested.

"Go ahead. Good luck getting into the club on your own," Carter called after her.

Serena rolled her eyes and turned towards him, several yards between them and the sea breeze whipping at her tousled curls. "Please. Like I couldn't get in to any club I wanted."

"Nice hubris, there, S. You're not on the Upper East Side anymore, princess," Carter said and he smirked. "Here. You're just a girl."

Serena was fuming; her cheeks were hot from wine, but her legs were now steady. She stalked up to Carter, who hadn't moved an inch from his place lower on the hill. At her height she stood just level to him if not an inch taller due to her higher ground. Her eyes were steely and determined as she came within whispering distance to him.

"I am not just a girl," she said venomously. Carter could have sworn it was the most seductive thing he'd ever heard. Her breath was hot against him and suddenly she smiled. A smile with a plan, an idea, behind it. "Ok. You're my brother."

"What?" he asked incredulously.

"Oh, come on. They'd be so much more inclined to let your underage girlfriend in with you, but your baby sister? Less likely! Let's see."

Carter always had loved a challenge. He grabbed her waist with both hands and pulled her forward, flush against him. "You're on, baby sis," he rasped.

"Get off, Carter," she whispered in his ear and pushed him back. She had confidence he could retain his footing.

I told you I could get in on my own, she had said. He'd nodded at her in surrender. She was gorgeous after all and he knew she could. Once they'd made their challenge, he mentally kicked himself in the head for agreeing to act as her brother. You're Sven and I'm Ingrid, from Stockholm she told him. Adopt an accent and play the black sheep because of your dark hair. The Greek girls will love it. Brood, don't smirk. Now go, she said. "Rawr," and she made cat claws with a smile and went on her way.

The brooding was working. When drunk girls heard the twinge in his accent – softened by boarding school in America of course - and could just about contemplate the mysterious sadness of his eyes and how his dark Byronic look was so off type from his Scandinavian roots, they melted. By the time he'd made the rounds through three different girls, he hadn't seen Serena in ages.

She – Ingrid – was no Bergman, but she boasted the allure of a modern-type Ingrid to all of the men in the club. She danced and threaded her hands through her hair and didn't have to pay for a single of her six shots. She'd deemed three strapping young men worthy of her attention to the techno beat and passed between them, dancing with each in a sultry, sweaty and salty way.

After some time, Serena had chosen her man out of the three, a chiseled Greek God in his own right, Nikolas. The European techno had still kept her spirits high and her accent strong. She grasped Nikolas' big, strong, olive arm and led him to a bar table on which Carter was leaning, working his brooding and handing a rum and tonic to his suitor, complaining at the lack of _____ in Greece.

Pitch Perfect.

"Sven, this is Nikolas," Serena called to him over the music, a sloppy introduction all around that spoiled Carter's mood. He swiped a glance at her toy and turned back to the lovely Italian on his right arm. Serena tongued her cheek. Now his brooding reminded her too much of Chuck Bass, and she sure wouldn't want him as a brother. As she waited hoping to pressure Carter into some semblance of nicety, she realized Nikolas didn't much care because he was nuzzling at her neck. Now she remembered why she'd marched over to Cart—Sven in the first place. She giggled at the sweet Greek nothings Nikolas was whispering in her ear in broken, adorable English and she turned her head too fast and saw the world in a fast blur, but remembered her goal sure enough.

"I just wanted to tell you…big brother, that Niko is staying at a bed and breakfast down the road and I'm going to go look at it with him. Don't wait up, ok?"

She was so matter of fact, sounding so cute and innocent. Wide-eyed. She was so drunk. And Carter finally looked at her. Her hair was messier, which suited her well and some strands were matted to the side of her face from sweat and sheen. Her glistening black mini dress had ridden up even higher on her thighs and bunched teasingly there and the golden fray hanging from the scooped neckline was still dangling and swaying from her previous exertions on the dance floor.

Carter stood abruptly, displacing his high barstool behind him and startling his arm candy. "Talk a minute, Serena?" he said icily, dropping his accent completely. Serena gawked at him openly before tightening her jaw in anger. She wouldn't dare budge, but he took her upper arm forcefully and dragged her away from the gaping idiots that were faring as their playthings. "That's right, you've been used," he said to them dismissively. "Now run along."

He pulled her to the side, against the west wall of the club, near the empty coat check closet. "Come on, we're going," he told her in the same dismissive tone he'd used on the others. She didn't know how much he wanted to throw her into the abandoned closet and ravish her right then. He was drunk as well, he supposed, and shook his head.

Once outside the club, he let go of her and inhaled the air, hoping it would be fresh, but only took in muggy hotness. It was like suffocating.

"What the hell is wrong with you? And what was that?" Serena finally said once he could properly hear her yell at him without the music to drown some of it out. She was almost glad that the difference between the muggy heat of the club and outside barely changed at all. It fueled her fire.

"Just looking out for you," he said with spite and insincerity, walking ahead of her and down the hill of cobblestones. She followed him past the rustic building and alleys and stonewalls, unable to keep up in her heels.

"Don't treat me like a child and don't tell me what to do!"

"Then don't tell me to be your fucking brother!" He turned swiftly and his eyes were angry. It startled her and she jolted backwards, catching her heel and wavering. Despite his inebriation, he was close enough to her grab her upper arms hard with his hands and prevent her fall by yanking her forward brusquely so that she now wavered the other way, and came directly in contact with his body. Before Serena had time to blow the stray strands of hair away from her face, his lips were on hers, hard and rough and hungry. His hands still holding her arms, his bruising kiss demanded response and she could do nothing except open her mouth to his and let him in, limp and immobile in his grasp.

When he let go, she couldn't breathe. She tried to blame it on the humidity hanging in that air that night, and when she did it still tasted like lust and sex and wine and she wanted to drink it all in. He was breathing hard in front of her, never having let himself lose such control of his suavity, and averting her gaze, which to him was searing.

"You should just take off those damn shoes," he said.

**Eros  
[desire, love, sex]**

Somewhere between her feet hitting the ground and her gathered shoes in her left hand, her right arm snaked around his neck as she grabbed him and drew him in for more. More, in the heat of the night. More, against the cream cement of the old buildings along the road, her back against a tailor shop. More, all the way down the cobblestone to hail a cab. More, steaming up the windows of the old vehicle and more and more and more.

Her toes felt the cold tile of the hotel lobby, the slightly rough carpet of the elevator. What floor are we on? Different, he muttered into her neck. Which room? Mine he decided. Snap decision. Ok what floor still? Four, murmuring into her neck.

Her hand reached out desperately to the buttons, willing her brain to think coherently for just one second for the benefit of the rest of the night. Four four four four four she thought five times. Shit. Now she was confused. Carter, she let out in a breathy sigh, but he sucked it in and nibbled at her bottom lip. He was going to be no help. When his hand ventured down to stroke her inner thigh with his thumb she could barely register anything but the buzz in her head and the heat of her body against his.

"Hold on," she whispered before she grabbed the lapels of his light blue jacket and rammed them both backwards so that his back hit all of the buttons to all of the five floors.

"What was that for?" he drawled and she just smiled into his lips. She could tell he wasn't terribly concerned because his thumb had now traveled to the thin cotton triangle of her panties and stroked.

To the bed, to the bed, he urged once they stumbled into his room. No, your pants first, why are you wearing a belt? It's so difficult. Men are high maintenance he told her, and ripped her panties off in one snap and hoisted her dress up and over.

As he struggled with the last of his clothing, he noticed her, laying back on the bed, her golden tresses framing her face and tumbling down her shoulders to her breasts, partially covering them. Her never-ending legs were tucked together and bent slightly at the knee, and she looked like a goddess.

"Open your legs," he urged her and she complied, almost demurely. He crawled above her like something feline. He hovered above her, drinking her in like the sea until she said his name. Then his hands were on her, stroking, exploring, and his tongue lapped at her neck and down into the crevice between her breasts and outlined the ridges of her ribs. Her hands tangled in his short hair and pulled and tugged.

There was no air still. The open bay window let in the smell of the sea but none of its breeze and they were soon both glistening in a sheen of sultry sweat. The sweet kind that tasted like alcohol and sex on the body.

When his fingers slipped inside of her, her back arched off of the sheets and her head rolled back with a moan.

"Please," she said and he loved it.

"Please what?" he asked.

She bit his shoulder in response. She was feisty and he loved that too. He smiled as he entered her, swiftly and hard. Her legs rose to curl around his waist as she mewed and her hair fell in bouncing swirls over the bed and almost touched the hardwood floors below. While thrusting into her, rhythmically and even, his teeth nipped and bit her jaw line.

Until she tightened her legs around him and flipped them over, so that she was on top and he was looking up at her, illuminated only by the slight glow of the moon outside of the window, which was faint but made her glow. She began to ride him, taking control, bending down to kiss him and nibble at his ear, bite his lip, make him squirm now.

When she noticed the bed was moving and the headboard was hitting the wall with each forward thrust of her hips onto him, she laughed. They kept the neighbors up for a good while until the pressure in her built up enough to force her lips into an "O" and lose any thought or emotion but release. When she came on top of him she shuddered and yet sped up, continuing, unrelenting until he grabbed her hips, dipped his fingers into her flesh and forced her down harder and faster and desperately until he came inside of her.

She collapsed on top of him and rested there, their bodies adhering together still from the heat and sweat, the Greek air refusing to yield any of its cooling sea breeze.

The night was all hot.


End file.
